In recent years, the use of cards having information encoded in a magnetic stripe attached to the card has increased quite dramatically. Such cards include credit cards, debit cards, Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cards, proprietary gas company and retail outlet cards, health cards, discount cards, frequent shopper cards, transit passes, etc and may be made of many common materials such as paperboard, cardboard or plastic. One of the most common uses of magnetic stripe encoded information is with respect to credit cards for purchases of goods and services. The term "card" as used in this specification refers to any suitable substrate for receiving a magnetic stripe or other readable strip.
In order to provide for security of the use of the credit card, most credit card issuers require that a merchant obtain authorization of the purchase from the credit card issuer if the purchase exceeds a certain value. This was traditionally accomplished by the merchant telephoning the credit card issuer and an operator at the office of the issuer inputting information regarding the credit card account, merchant account and value of the purchase into the credit card issuer's computer to generate an authorization number which was then verbally transmitted to the merchant. With the dramatic increase in credit card usage, the manual approval process had become extremely costly in terms of employee time to the merchant and more particularly, the credit card issuer.
For a number of years now a number of cards, such as credit cards, debit cards, ATM cards, proprietary gas company and retail outlet cards, etc. have been issued with information regarding the card holder and the accounts accessible with the card recorded on a magnetic stripe attached to the card in accordance with International Standard ISO 7811. By utilizing the information recorded on the magnetic stripe, the approval process has been automated through the use of terminals such as point-of-sale terminals. Such point-of-sale terminals are generally pre-programmed with the merchant information, provide means for entry of the purchase amount, and have means for reading the card account information from the magnetic stripe on the card. The point-of-sale terminals are connected directly to the card issuers' computers over the telephone lines and provide a more rapid authorization of the purchase, thereby providing time saving for both the merchant and the card issuer.
In accordance with ISO Standard 7811, the relevant information is recorded in 2 or 3 tracks on the magnetic stripe, each of the tracks being 0.11 inches wide with a separation between tracks of 0.02 inches. Thus, in order to have proper entry of the information recorded on the magnetic stripe into a terminal, it is critical that proper registration of the magnetic stripe with the reading head of the terminal be accomplished. At the present time, with the current designs of the terminals and the magnetic stripe reader, this proper registration is not always accomplished, errors in entry may be made and the process of reading the card and inputting the information must be repeated thereby defeating in part the time saving offered by the automatic approval process.
The placement of the magnetic stripe relative to the base of the card is controlled accurately during the manufacture of the cards. Existing card readers often have a molded plastic guide track and it is difficult to maintain tight tolerances and the mounting of the magnetic read head can vary.
There remains a need for a more effective card reading arrangement.